Great Women Artists

Berthe Morisot was born in 1841, a time when it was still quite difficult for women to become professional artists as the art world was predominantly male. She continually faced criticism and encountered difficulties due to her sex. Despite this, Morisot was able to establish herself as a respected artist whose work only continues to become more highly regarded with time. Her place in art history alongside such Impressionist artists as Claude Monet, Marie Bracquemond, Mary Cassatt, and Edgar Degas, is a testament to her ambition. She was an artist who “aspired to greatness” who “was not content to take second place.” Her painting Young Woman Knitting of 1883 is a excellent example of her style and technique. To fully comprehend how this painting is typical of her work, it is helpful to study her life, as well as her artistic development, especially in her paintings.

Instead, if we look at art as the total of toleration and production and purpose, we see that there was a whole system in place that excluded women from creating the type of work that made artists like Michelangelo and Raphael famous. So, why haven't there been any great women artists? Nochlin's answer is two-fold: first, the myth of artistic genius, which has been a part of art writing since Pliny, makes it seem that anyone with true artistic gifts would naturally make

The question “Why have there been no great women artists?” has been debated since the 1970’s, when historian Linda Nochlin released her book of a similar name. In the decades that have followed, the number of women pursuing education and

Modernity and the Spaces of Femininity was written by Griselda Pollock in 1988, and later published in The Expanding Disclosure in 1992. Griselda Pollock is an art historian, and writes this article for fellow art historians. This is an article written to show the different approaches to femininity in the late 19th century, mainly dealing with the field of art. This article shows how during this time period there were women artists, but due to the gendered ruled ideas attached to art history, these women are largely ignored by art historians. Pollock thought that these women artists are primarily overlooked due to the fact that they are judged by the same standards that are affixed to the work of their male counterparts. But she argues

(Millhouse, 2011) In the 1980’s Pollock’s Feminism “critiqued the essential myths of individualism, the artist, and the social constructions of femininity and masculinity that define bourgeois culture”. While the 70’s feminism movement aim was to stand next to the existing masculine dominated culture. “Feminism's encounter with the canon has been complexed and many-leveled: political ,ideology,mythological,methodological and psycho-symbolic” (Pollock, 1999). The 1970’s movement was followed by the immediate task which was “the need to rectify the gaps in historical knowledge created by the consistent omission of women of all cultures from the history of art” (Pollock, 1999). The only art that was put on display was significantly male dominated work, if you wanted to see work created by women, you would have to view them “in a basement or storeroom of a national gallery” (Pollock, 1999). Female artists are only known in their own category of female artists while male artists don’t require a separate category . Art that is created by females have been historically dismissed from the art historical canon as craft, as opposed to fine art. The evident of

“Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” was written with a passion both intense and familiar. Reading Nochlin’s words, I found myself thinking, several times, “I’d always wondered the same thing,” or “I feel the same way.” I even formulated some of my own thoughts on the subject, responding to the title question with another, asking, “What makes an artist an artist?” Upsettingly, it would seem it is not by her own choice or talent. It is decided by the world around her, including the men and “social institutions.” However, it would also appear that hope is always in reach for those who will wake up and grab it. Nochlin left us with this stirring advice:

“Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known.” -Oscar Wilde. Women are wild, sensitive, magnificent, mysterious, and above all: individual. Art’s many different medias allowed artist throughout the ages to capture women at both their strongest and most vulnerable points. It has the power to capture a woman: as a naïve, young girl clutching her brother as they are painted into a lasting portrait, a golden statue of an angel sent down to Earth to help a saved man take his first steps into an eternal life with God, to the powerful goddess, Artemis, transforming a hunter into a deer and having his hunting dogs tragically attack him. The six pieces of art chosen express the individuality of each women who has walked, walks, and will walk the earth.

How do the works of Yasumasa Morimura, Julie Rrap and Anne Zahalka challenge conventional ways in which gender has been depicted historically in the visual arts?

In the twenty first century there are a few men in this world that admits when you think of artist, you don’t typically think of women. Women rights and racism play a strong role when it comes to African American female artist. For decades’ African American woman have always had a permanent double bull’s eye on their back. Their skin and gender was their worst enemy. In the 1700 century women rights movements started to rise. But if you look up women right movements starting in the 1700 century, the face of women rights is predominantly white women. Between books and the internet, they show that it was mostly white women who helped woman rights. If we still struggle to shine light on African American Women now in the 21st century, you cannot

Have you ever looked at a piece of art and wondered how it could be based on real life, because it was just so beautiful? Well Elisabeth Vigee Le Brun was able to paint in such new and exciting ways; people were left wondering just this. Elisabeth Vigee Le Brun was a woman of many talents. In her life time she came up with new ways of painting, revolutionized fashion in France, and overcame any prejudice thinking because she was a woman. Before dying at the age of eighty-seven, she had gained the respect of women and men all across the world. Being a female artist in the eighteenth century was not easy, especially when you had to keep a career and your life together during the

Judy Chicago (artist, author, feminist and educator) has a career that now spans five decades. In the late 1960s, her inquiry into the history of women began a result of her desire to expose the truth of women’s experiences, both past and present. She still continues on a crusade to change the perception of women from our history, “Women’s history and women’s art need to become part of our cultural and intellectual heritage.” (Chicago, 2011) Through our history women - their struggles, accomplishments and contribution to history, have been overlooked, downplayed and even completely written out of a male dominated society and culture. In anthropologist Sherry Ortner’s 1974 essay “Is Female to Male as Nature Is to Culture?” she supports this view, writing “…woman is being identified with—or, if you will, seems to be a symbol of—something that every culture devalues,” (Ortner, 1974) Where Mendieta's work primarily came from a striving to belong and an understanding of where she came from, I feel that Chicago's aim was to find a place for all women, past and present in this world, starting with herself in the art world. Chicago did explore her peronal heritage in later works entitled 'Birth Project' and 'Holocaust Project'.

Dozens of horses are charging through the fair grounds, each hoof vibrating the ground, which causes chaos to erupt. Some horses are white as for a person of royalty, and others a mysterious brown. Through all this chaos, Rosa Bonheur paints what is before her. Her painting is called The Horse Fair. The painting itself is 8 feet tall by 16 feet wide.1 The Horse Fair is located at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.1 Bonheur uses a panoramic view in her painting.2 The Horse Fair was inspired by the horse market that Rosa Bonheur use to visit on Boulevard De l’Ho ̂pital.1 The building in the upper far left of the painting is called Asylum on Salpetriere, which is located in Paris.3 The people on the hill in the

1. According to Gerrard, the fundamental problem for female artists during the Renaissance era is the dichotomy between her as the artist and her as the overused object for the male artist. There was this notion during this period that women were almost exclusively in the object position. In addition, it was difficult for the female artist to navigate how she becomes identified as an artist. Since women were not thought of as artists there was a patriarchal balancing act of placing female artists in the field. Women artists could be argued as an exception to the rule, “not woman,” or “only a woman” by downplaying their artistic ability. Since women were commonly depicted in art idealized, feminine, and at times eroticized, a female artist needed

“The horse fair” painted by Rosa Bonheur (1822–1899) was one of the first female paintings shown in ”the gallerie”

Lady Gaga is one of the most talented and awarded artist of her time. Her early life growing up is relatively normal, but as her life transpires, she becomes erotic with her life choices, music, and clothes. Information from her past to present life gives insight into what makes her a superb artist, and it helps bystanders acquire a more kin understanding of Gaga’s life.